


Seldom All They Seem

by Velvedere



Category: Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Alternate Universe - Sleeping Beauty Fusion, Fairy Tale Retellings, M/M, Thor Is Sleeping Beauty, any excuse for daddy!Volstagg, in case it wasn't obvious, just came from seeing Maleficent twice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-19
Updated: 2014-08-14
Packaged: 2018-02-05 08:32:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1811992
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Velvedere/pseuds/Velvedere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lovingly but shamelessly ripping off the Sleeping Beauty/Maleficent story for a Thor and Loki AU. (The narrative is better if you imagine it being read by Tilda Swinton.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Once – as they say – upon a time, there were two realms.

These realms were unfortunate neighbors who shared a long border and an even longer history. They never quite saw eye to eye on anything, and fought constantly.

In one realm, Jotunheim, were the frost giants. Quiet. Proud. The sun did not shine on their lands, where it was always night and crystal winter.

The other realm, Asgard, was bright and loud. They built golden monuments that reached high into the sky, and reveled under the warmth and leadership of their king, Odin.

Odin and the king of Jotunheim, Laufey, were bitterest enemies. They met time and time again on the battlefield, and time and time again fought each other to a standstill. Neither Asgard nor Jotunheim would give ground nor yield in the struggle to be rid of the other.

War, it seemed, was their natural state.

But King Laufey had a son, Loki, who was powerful in the ways of magic. He hated his father, and hated the pointless fighting even more. In secret he sought a meeting with Odin of Asgard to form an alliance.

They met atop a cold hill on the ever-disputed border between their lands.

“I will help you depose my father,” Loki said. A chill wind coiled about them, tugging at his fur cloak and dark hair. “When he is dead, I will take the throne. Then we shall rule as equals and allies, and we will agree to end this fight.”

King Odin’s face was grave as he thought it over. Then he nodded.

“It is agreed. Let us be as brothers, forever.”

Invoking powerful magic, Loki and Odin sliced both their hands with a blade, then touched their palms to mingle their blood. The pact sealed their words to each other, and formed a bond that they could do no harm to the other so long as they lived (for though they swore to be brothers, in his heart Loki did not trust Odin).

With their combined strength, Laufey fell. His dying words spat curses upon his traitorous son, who held the blade that found its way into the old king’s heart.

Loki was unmoved.

The war ended. A time of great peace was declared.

The celebration that followed lasted for weeks.

But Loki had been right not to trust Odin.

Suspicion weighed heavily on Odin’s heart. How could he, newly king of a united realm, trust that peace would last when his accomplice had been so willing to kill his own father? Let alone a sorcerer who might find a way to break their pact and attack Asgard again once Odin had lowered his defenses? Only a few of his select generals had been present at his and Loki’s first meeting. What would his people think if they let word slip that he had mingled his blood with a frost giant?

All frost giants were dark and treacherous, after all, Odin thought. It would be best to be rid of them entirely.

Odin attacked Jotunheim again. This time he spared no one – man, woman, nor child – and those who were not killed were driven out of their homes to the very furthest reaches of the known realms, where lands were even more savage.

Loki tried to defend them. When reasonable pleas fell on Odin’s deaf ears, he fought back, calling on all manner of magics he knew, even the darkest sort, until the very land itself rose up against Asgard’s armies.

It was not enough.

The frost giants were driven away. Loki was captured. Because of their pact, Odin could not have him executed, but sentenced Loki to eternal imprisonment in Asgard’s dungeons.

But Loki was proud, and would rather die than be forgotten. He lashed out with one final burst of magic, and managed to escape.

Odin lost an eye in the process.

Loki fled into the wild lands. Odin did not pursue him, but let him go. Exile was a suitable enough punishment for the sorcerer. The kingdom of Jotunheim was broken, and the wilderness would soon claim the rest of their miserable lives.

Or so Odin thought.

*****

Time passed, and Asgard grew in size and splendor. The warmth as its borders expanded melted away the glassy night that once was Jotunheim. Flowers bloomed and trees sprung from empty cliffs that had once been covered in snow. Only the furthest edge of Asgard’s border remained dark and cold. Mothers would whisper to their children that that was where the frost giants still lived, who would sneak down to Asgardian villages under the cover of night and steal away naughty little ones who did not go to sleep when they were told.

The war faded from memory, melting into songs and legend.

Odin One-Eye – as he came to be called – settled comfortably down into the new reign of his kingship. He married a beautiful and capable woman, Frigga, and before long they were expecting their first child.

Asgard welcomed any reason to celebrate, so the announcement of a royal heir caused much to-do. Cooks worked for days to prepare a feast unmatched in the history of the realm. Nobility and gentry from even the furthest lands cleared their schedules to be in attendance. The golden city surrounding the palace citadel grew laced with decorative flowers and garlands. Banners streamed from windows and rooftops. Music began and played without cease even before the birth was announced. After that, the drink flowed.

A prince. Asgard had a new prince.

His name was Thor.

*****

Suddenly, the sky grew dark.

A lash of cold wind made the fires die in the grand hall. Strings on instruments snapped. Glass goblets shattered. Asgardians gasped as a sudden, gripping cold filled the room. It formed frost along the inside of windows and made their breath visible upon the air.

A black silhouette appeared, parting the crowd like water.

Odin stood from his throne.

“Loki,” he said, only daring to speak the name in a whisper.

Loki stood slowly from his crouch. A grin like a skeleton’s smile stretched itself across his face.

He looked different than Odin last remembered. He was thinner. Harder. Life in the wild lands had not been kind to the sorcerer, and the light in his crimson eyes was one hungering for vengeance. For blood.

Odin called for his guards.

They rushed into the room.

Loki moved only his hand, and spears of deadly ice formed on the air. Guests of the new prince’s announcement screamed as the spears flew, impaling the guards and pinning them to the golden walls. Loki left them there to hang in grisly decoration.

“Is that the way to greet an old partner?” Loki hissed, fixing his eyes on Asgard’s king.

Odin did not move, but clenched his fists at his sides.

“You are not welcome here,” he said.

“Am I not? I? Not welcome here?” Loki turned and swept an arm across the grand hall. His thick fur cloak and dark hair coiled around him. “I, who made all of this possible?”

He laughed. A jagged, broken sound, and leaned heavily on the staff he carried.

“Why, Odin. Your manners are absolutely terrible.”

“What is it you want, creature?” said Frigga. She stood at Odin’s side, sword in hand.

“What do I want?” Loki bowed graciously to her. “I want your husband’s head on a platter, dear queen. I want to lace his guts in a tree to catch flies. I want to see his red blood spilled on pristine snow, then leave his body with its one eye sewn open for ravens to peck at.” His grin was leering. Vicious. “But, since I can have none of that, I’ll settle for something else.”

He turned, and looked to the cradle where tiny Prince Thor lay. Guests had been lined up long beyond the walls of the citadel to get a look at the new baby. His cradle sat beside a heaped mountain of gifts and treasures they had bestowed, glistening gold and fine silks mixed among jeweled armor and weapons.

Odin saw where Loki’s eyes moved, and made to stop him.

“You can’t—!” he began.

“Can’t I?” Loki’s eyes flashed fire. They froze Odin in his place. “You have no idea what I’ve suffered in the time since we last met, King of Asgard. What my people have suffered. But you will. Oh, you will.”

Odin sneered.

“Already a murderer of your father. Of course it would not be beyond you to kill a child.”

“A murderer? Yes. If only because you were too cowardly to hold the dagger yourself.” Loki turned. Silent steps brought him closer to the infant’s side.

“Please, don’t,” said Frigga. Her voice trembled. Though often a warrior, her sword arm felt suddenly weak and useless.

“Oh, not to worry, dear queen.” Loki smiled. “I will not kill your child.”

He leaned over the cradle to look inside. The baby looked much like any other baby. Fat. Pink. It smiled up at him with the bluest eyes Loki had ever seen.

Loki wrinkled his nose.

“Though perhaps killing it would be a mercy. It is frightfully ugly.”

Loki swept back his cloak. Another burst of cold wind tore through the room as he lifted his staff. Its woven black and gold sculpt veined in a pulse of green magic.

“No. Odin’s punishment must be much worse than that.”

He turned to the crowd. When he spoke, his voice boomed, echoing up into the vast arches of the ceiling.

“All you gathered here bear witness! This prince shall live! And he shall live well. He will grow and be loved by all. He will be strong and fearless and everything you Asgardians want in a future king. It is no less than you deserve.”

His glare flashed towards Odin.

“But...there will come a day, when he is nearing the age of manhood, when it is time for him to inherit Odin’s crown, that he will strike himself on a sword and fall into a sleep.” These words Loki hissed, laced with malice, and drew a dagger from his belt. He held his hand over Thor’s tidy bundle and slit his palm. Three drops of blood struck the baby’s skin. One even slid into his mouth.

Thor whimpered and cried, reeling at the icy feel.

“A sleep from which he will never awaken.”

There Loki turned, and locked eyes with Odin once more. Palpable hatred filled the room as thick and tenebrous as Loki’s growing magic.

“This is my curse. And you will know, Odin One-Eye, what it is to see your world forever ruined before you. Not secreted away in some tomb or grave, but still living, still breathing possibility, just within your reach. And you will be able to do _nothing_. No one will be able to stop it!”

“Loki,” Odin gasped.

Loki tilted up his chin, and watched as Odin lowered himself to his knees.

“Do not do this,” he whispered. “Loki. Please.”

Loki arched one imperious eyebrow.

He approached the king – prone, begging – and leaned down close.

Quietly, gently, he whispered into his ear.

“No.”

He swept away, leaving Odin stunned. Silent.

“But,” said Loki, once more as he commanded the attention of the great hall, “since you are my blood brother, I shall give you one last gift.”

Loki brushed his hand across his chin.

“This sleep on the prince can be ended,” he decided, and the magic around him wove its intricacies to match. “It can be ended by the kiss of a beloved. By one whom the prince loves more than himself. Someone he would never betray. Not on pain of death or eternal agony.” He sneered to Odin. “Let us see if your son can overcome his father’s legacy.”

Loki struck his staff against the ground, as a decisive blow.

“Let this be your hope, and let your hope be continually dashed!”

Magic pulsed. It rippled through the ground and through the air and wove itself so tightly into the fabric of existence around them that it could never be altered.

Loki’s laugh echoed even long after he was gone, leaving Odin’s grand hall in darkness.

*****

Asgard became overrun in a flurry of activity.

Odin issued swift orders. He sent guards to scour every part of the castle. When Loki was not found, he ordered his soldiers out into the realm, searching to the furthest reaches of the land – particularly those parts still laden with cold and snow – to hunt down the sorcerer. Their instructions were not to kill, but to drag Loki back to the citadel in chains specially made for the binding of magic, that Odin could force him to undo his curse.

Then have him beheaded. Pact or no.

Throughout the realm Odin decreed a ban on all swords. It stood to reason that the curse could not be fulfilled if there was no sword for Thor to strike himself upon. Thus every blade was seized, down to the smallest dagger. They were destroyed, or melted down to forge new weapons – axes, spears, arrows – for the armies to utilize.

(Many cooks and tailors were put off by this action. A great deal of them secreted away small knives and scissors, that they could still work their craft.)

For fear that Loki would return to invoke the curse himself when the time came, Odin ordered the tiny Prince Thor to be taken far away from the castle citadel. He assigned three of his best warriors to protect and raise the child. They secreted him away under the cover of night, and swore oaths upon their honor that they would never speak a word to the prince of who he truly was, his parents, or the curse.

*****

“I miss my sword already,” Fandral mourned as he cast a wistful gaze to the last lingering sight of the citadel. It would be gone soon, and they would not return for many years. Not until Thor was grown.

“What you call a sword I call a toothpick!” said Volstagg. He sat beside Hogun, who drove their cart of supplies. A tiny bundle rested in his tremendous arms. “You’re better off with a more impressive weapon.”

“It is not the size of the weapon.” Fandral hummed and stroked his moustache. “It is how you use it.”

“Hrnn,” said Hogun.

They drove the cart tirelessly for several days and nights, until they reached a dense forest.

Within an hour they were hopelessly lost.

“It was this way, on my honor!” Volstagg insisted. “I remember!”

“Quiet!” said Fandral. “You’ll wake the prince.”

“You should not get into the habit of referring to him that way, Fandral. We’re going to live as peasants from now on. No talk of war or the king. No tossing our weapons about.” His tone faltered somewhat, and he sighed. “No more grand feasts by roaring fires.”

“No bragging about our exploits to the ladies.” Fandral joined him in melancholy.

“Hrnn,” said Hogun, and pulled the wagon to an abrupt stop.

A stranger stood on the path before them.

“Fine gentlemen,” said the stranger, bowing low. A ratty cloak concealed his face and much of his figure. “Where might you be going this lovely evening? Surely there’s nothing here in this barren wood to warrant the attention of great warriors such as yourselves?”

“We’re looking for a cottage,” said Volstagg, adjusting his hold on Thor as the swaddled infant squirmed in his sleep. “It lies somewhere near.”

“Ah. Old. Overgrown. Squirrel-infested?”

“That’s the one!”

The stranger turned and pointed further up the path, nodding his head.

“It’s just that way. Not a stone’s throw.”

“Thank you kind sir!” Volstagg grinned to the other two. “See there, lads? What did I tell you? Nothing gets by Volstagg the Perceptive!”

The stranger stepped off the path and bowed as they rode by. Then he turned, back bent, and shuffled away into the forest, leaning heavily on his staff as he went.

“This baby-raising business will be easy,” Volstagg went on. “After the things we’ve faced in our time? Come, come. How hard could it be?”

Thunder rumbled overhead from a gathering of dark clouds, and Thor began to cry.

*****

Odin’s search for Loki produced no results, for he was looking in the wrong places.

Loki was not far away at all.

After leaving the castle, Loki disguised himself as an Asgardian commoner. He turned his skin fair, bled his eyes of their crimson hue, and hid the marks of his frost giant heritage beneath a glamour. He followed the progress of the warriors as they made their way to their tiny hovel (he was, of course, the stranger on the path who pointed the way), and kept watch, highly entertained by the efforts of the warriors as they did their best to care for a squalling baby.

None of them had much experience.

At times he would interfere: turning himself into a rat to dart across a table and steal a particularly poisonous mushroom about to be chopped up for the night’s soup; making himself a gust of wind through a window to blow harmful smoke away from where young Thor was playing; lighting a fire near the infant’s basket on cold nights to keep him warm.

His curse was no good if the baby was dead, after all.

Other times he would perch just outside the window as a dark black bird, bright eyes cocked as he watched the tiny prince gurgle and coo inside.

And so, Thor grew.

*****

“Halt!”

Loki glanced aside where he perched on a stone beside the river, dark brow dubiously raised.

A freckled and scraggily blonde child stood near, his stance braced wide, both hands clasping a kitchen mallet. He pointed the tool fiercely before him in the manner of a weapon.

“Halt, I say!”

“I am not moving,” Loki said calmly. “Therefore how can I halt?”

The logic made the child falter. But he adopted his ferocity again, pointing dramatically.

“I am Thor Dragonslayer! You are trespassing on these lands!”

“Is that so?”

Loki drew up a knee and braced his chin in one hand. He looked the child over. Thor was a skinny thing at this age, skin dark from time spent in the sun. His hair was in desperate need of a trim, and freckles spread across his nose and shoulders in youthful abundance. Only his eyes were striking, bright against his skin.

He looked nothing like his father, Loki thought. More of his mother, perhaps.

“Well then.” Loki swept one arm high and bowed his head. “What must I do to gain permission to pass through this realm?”

“You must...!” said Thor, and faltered again. He had not quite anticipated conversation to go this far. “You must best me in battle!”

“I see.” Loki smiled. “You are this realm’s protector?”

“I am.” Thor waved his mallet.

“Very well.” Loki made a gesture with one hand. Thor promptly lifted from the ground, sailed through the air, and landed in a still part of the river’s flow. He made an absolutely undignified yelp before the water pulled him under.

He broke the surface again, gasping and sputtering.

Loki hummed.

“That was not so difficult.”

Thor swam for the bank – at least the three warriors had taught him that much – and climbed out, dragging still his mallet behind him.

Now he was skinny and wet.

“You can use magic?” Thor gasped, pushing tangled locks of hair from his eyes.

Loki hummed once more.

“Are you a forest spirit?”

“Perhaps.”

“That’s amazing!”

Loki frowned. It was not...quite...the reaction he had been expecting.

“What.”

“Show me what else you can do!”

Loki frowned. His eyes flickered with a hint of power.

“I could turn you into a frog,” he growled.

Thor grinned as wide as he was able. He was missing a tooth.

“Yes!” he bounced, scrambling quickly to climb up the rock and sit beside him. The closeness made Loki uncomfortable. He scooted away as far as he could without abandoning his perch.

“Yes, please do!” Thor laughed. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a frog. I could sit outside Volstagg’s window and keep him up all night with my bellowing. All insects would flee at my presence!”

He puffed out his chest, doing his best impression.

Loki scowled.

“You would be snatched up and eaten by a bird,” he grumbled.

Thor laughed. It was a sound like a spring rain.

“That bird would find me not so easy to swallow. I could kick! I would put up a fierce fight!”

Loki rolled his eyes.

*****

Thor grew upward first, gangly and awkward as a newborn colt. Then he grew out, chest and shoulders broadening with the onset of adulthood. His eyes were ever bright. His smile even brighter. His hands were possessed of a firm and solid strength, ruled with a kindness that stemmed from deep within his heart.

Loki saw these things as he watched him.

He had a king’s bearing. A king’s resolve. A king’s confidence and passion.

Even clad in commoner’s rags, that much could not be hidden.

Loki was not a fool. He had allowed himself to be caught seemingly unawares by the child as he played in the woods, well beyond the watchful eyes of his guardians.

Curiosity had driven him to it. Though he spied about the cottage and followed Thor in his wanderings – often one of the warriors would take him to a nearby village on a trip for supplies...it was there Thor met a girl near his age named Sif, and they would spend long afternoons slaying imaginary foes together – Loki wished to know more about the young prince. To see if there were the beginnings of his father’s treachery and greed in him.

He saw none of it.

Thor begged and pleaded with his guardians for the use of a proper sword to train with as he grew. Though they would not tell him the reason why, they would not concede. (Nor did it ever occur to Thor to think it strange that none of them used swords themselves, when all old stories and legends were filled with them. Just as it did not strike the warriors how the most spectacular storms occurred when Thor cried as an infant. They only thought him afraid of thunder.)

Thor made do with his kitchen mallet.

Until, when he was much older, Loki presented him with a proper battle hammer.

*****

“It’s magnificent,” Thor gasped, holding the weapon aloft to best catch the light.

Loki’s eyes danced as he watched him marvel. It was hard not to be caught in Thor’s enthusiasm.

“She is enchanted,” he said, lightly nodding his head. “She will always return to your hand, whenever you call her.”

“She?”

“Yes. Her name is Mjolnir.”

“She is lovely.” Thor tied the hammer by its leather strap to his belt. The weight felt right against his thigh. Proud and proper.

He could not stop smiling.

“Must I keep this hidden as well?” he grinned.

“Yes.”

Loki smiled. Thor’s freckles had faded as he’d grown. They returned now and again only when he lingered too long in the sun.

When the sky was overcast, Loki would often dispel the clouds for a time while they met, just to see them again.

“You must keep this secret. There will be questions as to where such a weapon came from.”

“Then why not answer them?” Thor clasped Loki’s shoulders in his hands and held him, beaming bright. “Will you never allow me to speak of you to the others? You could show them your magic. I have no doubt they would love you!”

“They may.” Loki slipped free from his touch easily. “But this is the way it must be, Thor. No one can know of me.”

“Not even Sif?”

“Not even Sif.”

“Then will you at least tell me your name?”

“Perhaps. When the time comes.”

“When will it come?”

Loki did not answer. They often spoke thus, when Thor would steal away into the woods to see him in secret. He had come almost every day since their first meeting beside the river.

For Loki, it did not seem like such a long time ago.

Thor’s smile never wavered, despite Loki’s evasiveness. He grinned and practiced swinging Mjolnir through the air, creating his own heroic sounds of battle.

Loki watched him, quite content.

“I shall slay a hundred frost giants with such a weapon!” Thor proclaimed.

Loki slipped his eyes away, saying nothing. He made only a distant humming sound.

And so was unprepared when Thor abruptly came up from behind and threw his arms around him, trapping him in a massive hug.

“I do love her. Thank you!”

Loki was so startled he disappeared.

*****

“I have never seen it snow,” Thor said on another occasion, when they sat together under a clear sky, gazing at stars. “Why does it never snow here?”

“I do not know,” answered Loki. “It never has.”

“They say it snowed always in Jotunheim, but never here. Was that why they fought?”

“Perhaps.”

“I would like to see it someday.”

Loki glanced aside to where Thor lay among the grass. Even under moonlight that robbed the world of all its color, somehow he glowed. Warm and soft and golden.

The part at the neck of his tunic trailed an open line down his chest. Loki could not help but notice.

“Would you,” Loki breathed.

Thor blinked, and had barely the time to lift his head to question when something very cold landed on his cheek. It burned like fire in the moment before it faded, and went out.

Thor touched his face, questioning.

Then more of it began to fall from the sky.

Thor looked first to Loki, astounded. Then he laughed and rose to his feet to run through the snow as it fell from an open sky, quickly piling into drifts along the trees and riverbank.

Rather than brace himself against the cold, Thor plunged into it. He threw himself down where the snow gathered and rolled, leaving long imprints of his body. He threw snowballs at boulders and branches. He built awkward, lopsided forts and tunnels once the landscape was covered in it, and defended his castles until his cheeks and nose turned bright red, and he could not speak without his teeth chattering.

Loki sat, not bothered at all by the chill.

He only smiled.

At last Thor looked so pathetic that Loki ceased the falling snow. He summoned a small fire and draped a cloak around Thor’s shoulders, urging him to sit while he gave him something warm to drink.

“I love it,” Thor decided, even as he shivered.

“I’m glad.” Loki crouched near him, coaxing the fire warmer with his hand. “There has ever been a serenity to an icebound land. It feels timeless in a way seasons cannot. No harsh, brazen sun to burn and boil. There’s quiet. There’s calm. There’s—”

Thor kissed his cheek.

Loki stopped, and stared.

Thor grinned, utterly without apology.

“You speak as though you have been there,” he said.

Loki did not answer, but spent the rest of the night in a daze. As though he had been struck by lightning.


	2. Chapter 2

“Thor...we cannot do this...”

Hands slid around the small of Loki’s back, pushing down the waistline of his clothing. Already his cloak had been discarded. He sat straddling Thor’s lap, Thor’s breath on his neck and scruff scraping his skin.

When Thor spoke, his voice was deep, rough with a breathless desire.

“Why not?” he rumbled.

“It would not be...”

Loki had several reasons in mind. He was certain of it. But then Thor’s hands slid beneath the cloth of his garments and all thought was lost. He gasped into Thor’s mouth, hovering so close their breath was one.

_Flee,_ Loki’s better instincts told him. _Run away._ It would be easy enough. He could turn himself into a bird. Escape. Fly somewhere far and away where he could take care of this useless arousal alone.

But Thor’s eyes looked up to him, thier impossible blue so open and unashamed of their want. His lips were lightly parted, flushed red from their crushing kisses. Thor held them now slack, just on the precipice of whispering for more. Sweat beaded lightly on his neck and brow.

Loki wondered how it would taste.

His heart ached, and his body yearned.

“Thor...”

Thor knew not where to put his hands. Loki showed him. He rocked against his lap and devoured Thor’s mouth, tasting him so deep Loki could swear he tasted the curse upon him: a bitterness beneath the sweet and spiced apples.

_“Thor...”_

“Tell me your name,” Thor begged, kissing Loki’s skin. His chest. Tonguing over one dark nipple. “Please.”

“Loki.” He answered on a gasp. Unable to deny him any longer. Cradling Thor’s head in his arms. “My name is Loki.”

“Loki...”

Thor spoke it, and the sound was honey on his voice. Like summer’s light off a pool of amber.

Loki held him, and rocked in his lap, coaxing Thor with a slow savoring to new heights before working Thor inside him.

Thor was much as he had ever been: like a boy, wide-eyed with wonder at it all as his hands trembled and breath caught, exploring this new treasure with strong and tender demand.

He moaned Loki’s name many times before they were done.

*****

It was the first of many trysts.

They met most often at night. Thor could easily enough conjure an excuse to be away in the woods for a time and thus escape his guardians, but he did not enjoy being dishonest with the warriors who had raised him. They were good friends, and dearly beloved.

Even if Volstagg’s idea of lulling him to sleep when he was young was to bellow epic ballads of war over Thor’s bassinet until he cried for fear.

Hogun’s songs had been more soothing.

Stealing away under the cover of night while the three slept did better by Thor’s conscience.

Those were wonderful nights. Wrapped in the company of one another, Thor and Loki lost hours upon hours. They tasted each other’s skin and explored even the most hidden parts of themselves. They came together beneath the moon’s light while stars caught and held in their eyes, the sweat of lovers upon their skin haloed in pale silver.

Less often they met in daylight. Still in secret, they would make their way to the lake. There the sun shone on crystal still water lined to its edge with pines, the skeletons of which could be seen felled in the lake’s depths.

They splashed in the cold water like children.

They made love in the shallows.

It was there Thor would often stop and marvel at the way the light caught and held on Loki’s skin, making it appear to glow, even in deep shade. His dark hair glistening wet and black across his neck.

Sunlight tossed up from the water’s surface underlit their chins. Highlighted their smiles.

It was a happy time.

Mad. Passionate.

And all too brief.

*****

They lay together, quiet in the dark.

Thor rested on his side on a bed of heather Loki kept for them in a sheltered part of the forest. He slept, peace in his mind and in his heart. His arms draped loosely about Loki, who remained awake, his cheek to Thor’s chest where he listened to the gentle beat of his heart.

It was a calming sound.

Loki tried to recall the precise moment he had lost himself to this boy. He could not remember. It seemed a gradual thing, like a sickness, lurking unseen in a body until suddenly making itself manifest.

Oh, but what he felt for Thor could never truthfully be likened to something so vile. He had simply looked away; dropped his guard for the barest of moments.

By the time he returned to his senses, he was in love.

Loki could not sleep.

He curled a lock of Thor’s hair around his finger. Briefly, he considered pulling it, if only to wake him. To see Thor’s startled eyes flash upon him, first in surprise, then blooming warmth.

He tried to think of revenge. He mulled over the memory of his stab at Odin where the king of Asgard was most vulnerable.

Once, it had brought him comfort. It nursed him through long nights of hatred and isolation when he could think of nothing else. When revenge for himself and his kind comprised the only reason for living.

Now, thinking of it made his stomach twist into a sickly tight knot.

Thor had stolen that comfort from him, too.

Loki slipped carefully away from Thor’s grip.

Thor’s brow furrowed. He reached out blindly in his sleep, grunting discontent, as he felt for Loki’s warmth again like a groping child. Loki shushed him quietly, brushed a kiss against his lips and hair, to soothe him back into dreams. Then stole away to retrieve his dagger.

The time of the curse’s fulfillment drew near. Loki could feel it like the tension of a storm’s onset.

Thor had grown. It was not truly proper to call him a mere boy anymore. Were he in Odin’s court, the time would come any day now for Odin to name him heir. Perhaps as soon as his next name day.

The sickening twist in Loki’s stomach grew worse.

Perhaps there was yet something he could do...

Loki pulled his dagger from where it had been discarded (along with the rest of his garments). Returning to Thor’s side, he knelt, held out his hand, and drew the blade across the soft part of his palm. Blood welled and he closed his hand into a fist, letting the cerulean blue drops fall and stain the ground in a ring where Thor slept.

“This power is in me,” Loki murmured as he did so. “This power is in me.”

Blood dripped between his fingers. Loki felt the throbbing in his palm like a second heartbeat.

“I carved this curse from blood and hate. By blood and love, I now undo it. This power is in me. _This power is in me._ ”

Loki felt cold sweat on his body and a fire in his mind. His voice was the hiss where the two met. He could feel the magic around him: permeating the air, infusing the ground. It fought him. Stubbornly resisted.

Loki knew that willpower. He had weilded it himself all his life.

“Please,” he begged to the elements. The earth. Anything that would listen to a broken whisper. “I love him.”

But the magic would not break. It coiled around the spill of his blood. Loki heard his own words in its echo.

Those words that swore the curse’s spell could never be undone. Not even by him.

_“...but still living, still breathing possibility, just within your reach. And you will be able to do nothing. No one will be able to stop it!”_

Hate, it seemed, proved stronger than love.

Loki screamed a cry of broken frustration, and sank down to his knees, covering his face with one hand.

He let the dagger fall.

He would not weep. His pride would not allow it in the presence of another, but his heart shattered. He could feel it open like a crevice in his chest.

A warm, pleasantly rough hand touched his shoulder.

“Loki?” said Thor, very quietly.

Loki gasped. Quickly hid his bleeding hand. He turned and fell on Thor in desperate embrace, cupping his cheek and kissing him deeply.

“Nothing,” he said. “It’s nothing, Thor. Just love me. Please...love me....”

And Thor did.

*****

The end came swiftly.

It was, on the whole, unremarkable. A day or two after Loki had ceased to maintain his guard. He knew the time of the curse would come soon.

A part of him, deeply buried and seldom acknowledged, wanted it to be over and done with. He felt the pain of it strike him every time Thor smiled.

Thor took note of Loki’s morose turn of mood, and did his best to cheer him.

They were basking at the lakeside under the full light of the sun when the three warriors came upon them.

They emerged from the treeline, having at last followed Thor after a suspicion that had been developing for some time.

“Thor!” bellowed Volstagg. “So this is where you’ve been sneaking away to.” Volstagg could scarce fault him for his secrecy. It was a beautiful place.

Fandral frowned, slow but eventual in recognizing Thor’s companion.

“Is that...?”

Hogun drew his weapon.

“Loki!”

“You know him?” Thor looked between them, caught between a frown and burgeoning delight that the most important people to him could at last meet.

But Loki had drawn himself up taut, poised and tense as a cat.

“Know him?” Volstagg bristled and hefted his axe. “This sorcerer is a frost giant! Enemy to all of Asgard!”

“What?”

Wide-eyed, Thor looked to him, where Loki returned only a feral grin.

“It’s true,” he said, and let the glamour from himself drop, revealing his true self. “I am of Jotunheim. Bloodbound to your wretched king, and I _will_ see his downfall.”

Thor stared.

“Jotun wretch,” growled Fandral.

Loki flashed his teeth.

“Oh. I am much more than that.”

Thor stood, stunned into silence, then reached for him.

“Loki...”

Volstagg cried out and lunged. He swung his axe high, joined by Fandral and Hogun at his side. Loki summoned staff and dagger into his hand, willing the dagger to a greater size to better fend off the three attackers.

“No!” Thor cried, and moved between them.

The wound was not deep – scarcely a glancing blow, hardly fatal – but it was enough.

Loki met Thor’s eyes from the other end of the blade.

The grief and heartbreak Loki saw there struck him as deeply as did the light touch on his cheek, how it lingered, before Thor fell.

“Thor!” 

His friends rushed to catch him.

Loki did not. He dropped his dagger – his sword – and backed away.

He turned himself into a bird and flew away from that place, as swift as ever a bird’s wings had managed to fly.

Fandral loosed an arrow after him, but Loki was already too far gone.

A long, mournful cry echoed over the trees.

*****

The warriors brought Thor back to the citadel. There was little else they could do.

Odin raged.

Frigga mourned.

She spoke on the warriors’ behalf and managed to change Odin’s mind about stripping them of their titles and sending them into exile for their failure, and tasked them instead with finding a way to break the curse.

“Should be easy enough,” Volstagg murmured to the others. “The kiss of a beloved, right?”

Fandral nodded. “Thor was beloved by many.”

“Hrnn,” said Hogun.

Odin summoned the best mages and healers and scholars from the furthest edges of the realm, but there was nothing they could do. The whole of them together could find nothing actually wrong with the prince. He was only asleep.

A room was prepared in the citadel to make Thor comfortable. He was placed in a grand bed, one worthy of a prince, beside a large window that faced east, that every day the sun would rise and cast its renewed light of hope upon his face.

For the rest of Asgard, it felt as though a great light had gone out.

*****

“You want me to what?” Sif frowned at the three of them.

“Kiss him,” Volstagg insisted, with great sweeps of his arm. “It will break the curse.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“You’ve grown up together,” Fandral joined him, nodding eagerly. “Played together. Fought together. Surely you must feel some affection for him?”

“Of course I do.” Sif looked down to where Thor lay in his bed. He looked perfectly at peace, his head tilted lightly to one side. Breathing deep and even. She felt a sudden urge to reach down and brush back the hair from his face. To make certain his temperature was cool. “But not in the manner I think you mean.”

“Then perhaps he feels it for you? The curse did say it could be broken by one Thor values more than himself.”

“Then it could apply to any of us.” Sif shot them all a stern look. “Or do you doubt for an instant Thor would not lay down his life for any of his friends?”

“Of course not.” The three warriors shook and bowed their heads. “It’s just that...well...”

Sif waited.

Hogun finally confessed.

“You are a girl.”

“Woman,” Volstagg corrected.

“Lady!” insisted Fandral.

Sif rolled her eyes, and returned her attention to Thor.

She folded her arms and leaned over him, considerate.

“If a man tried to kiss me while I slept,” she said, “I would throttle him. Have you tried striking him? That seems a more certain way to wake someone.”

“No.” Volstagg shook his head sadly. “The curse said it must be a kiss.”

Sif pressed her lips firmly together.

“What if the magic is catching?”

“I shouldn’t think it is. The curse never said as much.”

“Very well.”

Sif braced herself along the bedside. Summoning the great depths of friendship, loyalty, protection, and devotion she felt for Thor, she closed her eyes and leaned down to kiss him. Just at the corner of his mouth.

The warriors held their breath.

Sif did, too.

But nothing happened.

Sif leaned back, and sighed.

Volstagg patted her shoulder.

“Not to worry, lass,” he said. “It didn’t work with us, either.”

Sif looked at them all very strangely.

“Well,” said Fandral, shrugging. “No harm in trying.”


	3. Chapter 3

Loki did not return for several weeks.

When he did, it was under the cover of darkness.

The citadel lay asleep in the dead of night. A great lethargy smothered the landscape, as if all were covered in a thick blanket. Even the torches that burned in the late hour seemed to do so without energy, their flames lifeless and dim.

Loki landed on the windowsill of Thor’s bedchamber, dark-feathered wings folding behind him. He slipped inside and took his normal shape. Casting his eyes to the darkness, he saw there were no guards, save those who slumped outside. Dozing.

Thor lay asleep, heartbreakingly beautiful in the pattern of moonlight cast through the windowglass.

Loki leaned on his staff, for awhile daring to venture no closer.

“Well,” he said to the darkness, quiet and wry. “Now you see me. And as I truly am.”

No answer came, of course. There was no sound at all, save for the most distant snores and crickets.

“I will not ask your forgiveness. Nor will I apologize. What’s done is done.”

Odin withered in his sorrow. His kingdom mourned with him. It was exactly as Loki had always dreamed it would be.

Now, he drew a breath with a trembling hitch. His heart beat irregular in his chest.

“I’m half tempted to leave you this way,” he said with sudden, bitter resentment. Loki knew his own selfishness even now. He would rather preserve his memories of Thor as they were. Let him sleep. Let him never know worry or hardship again in this life, and never let Loki have to witness the horror, disgust, and hate Thor would have for him upon waking.

Though Loki knew he only deserved it.

He moved across the room slowly. Set aside his cloak and staff. Thor’s bed dipped briefly with his weight, and Loki lay alongside him, curling in to rest his cheek on Thor’s shoulder.

His hand slipped down, following the path of Thor’s arm, to link their fingers.

It would be their last moment together.

“I should hate you for what you’ve done,” Loki said. “I do hate you. I despise you. You’ve taken everything from me. Beyond even what your father took. He took my lands. My home. The pride from my people. After that I had only my revenge. My hate. Little else, but I had that. And it was enough. But then...”

Loki bit the inside of his cheek. Clenched Thor’s hand where he held it.

“You took that from me, too. I feel there’s no strength in my heart left. You’ve stolen it. You showed me what it was like to lie still and be at peace. Now I know revenge to be the harsh, brutal thing it is, and so lonely...so very lonely...when instead I could be held in your eyes. For that, I hate you.”

Loki lifted his head. He looked down upon the sleeping Thor. Gently, he touched his cheek. Traced the scruff of a beginning beard.

“But I love you even more.”

Loki thought of the moment he first saw him, swaddled as a babe. It was hardly love at first sight, but as the years passed and Thor became the bright center of his world, the possibility grew less and less of imagining existence without him. What else would Loki gravitate towards, with intent to corrupt and destroy? Who else, in all the world, would remain untouched by his hate and loathing, instead healing him in return? What other goodness and warmth could so embody themselves in a being that they earned the love of the coldest, most bitter heart?

Oh, but Loki would miss him.

Cupping his cheek, Loki rose over him. Breath fell soft from his lips as he touched them to Thor’s, the barest brush of a kiss.

He thought that would be enough.

It was not. He wove his fingers into Thor’s hair and held him in both hands, covering his mouth with his own. Wanting for this one last embrace.

Loki held his breath. Felt the burn of tears in his eyes. His brow furrowed deep with the effort of holding himself otherwise still.

Only when Thor’s hand raised, touched the back of his head, did Loki’s breath release on a gasp. A full shudder rippled down his body.

“Loki,” Thor murmured, without opening his eyes.

Loki knew not what he could say.

“Thor...Thor, I—”

Thor pulled him into his arms, sudden, crushing into Loki’s mouth with another kiss.

Loki squawked, muted, and dug his hands into Thor’s shoulders to push away, scrambling backwards.

Thor would not have it.

He held on, arms locked around him if Loki would not kiss him back, until Loki at last gave up struggling. He turned to magic instead, vanishing and reappearing nearer the window across the room.

“Loki!” Thor pushed himself from the bed, throwing aside covers and blanket furs without heed. “Wait!”

His feet had only touched the ground when he collapsed, his body sluggish from so much sleep.

Loki moved to catch him before he fell, scowling.

“Idiot! Have more care with yourself!”

Thor grinned, blissfully careless, and wrapped around him once more, content to hold on.

“I shall in a moment,” he said. “First I must kiss you.”

“No, don’t—!”

“Yes, Loki.”

“Thor—!”

“Yes, Loki?”

“Idiot!”

It was useless to resist, really. In the end, they sank together to the floor, tangled and leaning on the other for support. Thor held Loki’s face in his hands and beamed such radiance Loki forgot it was night. He brushed his thumb over the remnant of Loki’s tear trails, and kissed them away. All the while Loki looked at him, wide-eyed, flinching at every new movement, as though he expected to be struck.

“Thor,” he managed at last, trembling in voice as well as body.

“Loki.”

“Are you...?”

“Am I what?”

“Are you not repulsed?” Loki opened and closed his hands where they rested against Thor’s chest. Blue skin marked with the lines of Jotun heritage flexed in the moonlight.

Thor caught his hand, and lifted it. Kissed his wrist.

“What do you mean?” he smiled. “I see only you, and you are beautiful.”

Loki’s breath caught in his throat. He held it, stilling his heart to keep its place and not rise. Not daring to hope.

“Do not lie to me,” he said, forcing a laugh. If this was Thor’s revenge in turn, it was too clever and too cruel. “You know what I am. What it is I have done.”

“I know,” said Thor. “And it matters not. What’s done is done.”

“You...forgive me?” Loki trembled.

“No,” said Thor, touching their palms. “You have not asked for it. But I do accept you. All of you. Everything you have done, for it is all part of you.” He kissed Loki’s stunned face. His parted mouth. “And, when you ask, I will say yes.”

Loki sat, dumbstruck.

“Thor...”

“I love you, Loki.”

He kissed into Loki’s neck. Loki did not resist, but he frowned, striving to think through a rapidly mounting haze of physical need and wrestling urges.

“How did you know?” He gasped as Thor found that particular spot just at his collar. Lifted his chin to bare more of his throat.

“I...don’t know,” Thor confessed, only briefly pausing his affections. “I...remember all. I heard you. All you said. It seems a dream, now.”

“Then...everything...”

“Yes.”

“And the others?”

Thor nodded his head sagely.

“Volstagg’s breath smells of roast mutton.”

Loki braced against a roll of nausea in his gut.

“Then why did they not wake you? They met the requisites to break the curse’s hold.”

“I know.” Thor nodded and lowered his eyes. He looked to Loki’s hands, still clasped in his own. Watched the intertwine of their fingers. “I knew them when they were here. And I would place their lives above my own, but...I wanted it to be you.”

He lifted Loki’s hands. Touched them to his lips.

Loki held his breath.

“It meant you had come back to me.”

There, Loki crumbled.

He fell into Thor’s arms at last with a wordless cry. Relief. Absolution. Gratitude. Such words did nothing to describe the warmth that broke free inside him. The last layer of ice ringing his heart cracked. Broke away. He felt the full light of Thor’s sun and embraced the pain as much as the pleasure of new spring.

They were not disturbed for several hours, until the guards were woken by the noise.

*****

They stood before Odin in the citadel’s grand hall.

They stood together.

Loki made Thor keep a tight grip on his hand, else he would not enter the citadel at all. Even standing at Thor’s side now, he could only glare up at Odin upon his throne, seated among his guards and warriors.

Frigga had been the most welcoming to news of Thor’s recovery. She ran to him as they entered, throwing her arms around Thor’s shoulders and kissing his cheeks and forehead. Tears of relief rimmed her eyes, and to Loki she bowed her head, grateful.

Odin remained somewhat more sedate.

“...what you did, you did in love for me,” Thor was saying, content to be the one to speak while Loki stood aside. Silent. “And though I know you to be my parents, I do not know you so well as those who raised me.”

Thor cast his gaze affectionately aside to the three warriors. They stood by proudly.

“But I wish to. Very dearly. And so if you’ll have me stay, I will.”

“Of course we’ll have you,” said Frigga. “You belong here. These warriors did their task well to see you standing before us now, so grown. Our son.”

“Even if they did give him brandy for colic,” Loki muttered.

Frigga looked briefly astonished, then frowned.

“You give infants brandy to rub on their gums while teething,” she said. “Not for colic.”

“Yes, well,” spoke Volstagg in their defense. “Thor was a very happy baby.”

Thor laughed, and squeezed Loki’s hand.

“I would also ask that Loki be allowed to stay as well, or at least come and go freely, as he wishes. No good has come of this conflict between you. I would see it mended.”

It was there Odin shifted in his seat. He tugged at his beard. Thoughtful.

“Some past doings are not so easily set aside,” he said.

Thor did not flinch.

“But it can be done,” he ventured instead.

For awhile, Odin was steely silent. Loki glared and bristled and kept tight hold on Thor’s hand, his grip like ice.

Odin finally spoke: “I am not certain I like the idea of a frost giant in my realm.”

“I’ve been here whether you like it or not,” growled back Loki. “I never left.”

“If you banish him, then so be it.” Thor intervened before voices and tempers could rise. “He will go in peace. But do so knowing you banish me as well. For where he goes, so do I.”

Loki shot his look to him, taken aback, but not half so dumbstruck as Frigga and the warriors.

A quiet murmur rippled through the hall.

“You would abandon your home for him?” Odin challenged.

“I would abandon nothing,” said Thor. “But I would be exiled.”

“You would give up your inheritance? Turn away from those who raised you?”

“Yes, as you say it.”

“For a frost giant.”

“For the one I love.”

“Your enemy.”

Thor shrugged.

“I love whom I love.”

Thor stood his ground, though Loki wished he would pull away. They could leave this place together. Let Odin sit on his throne and rot, knowing his own bitterness and resentment had robbed him of his heir after all.

But it was not in Thor’s nature to abandon those close to him. Even seeming strangers.

There was too much love in him.

“I want only peace with all,” said Thor. “It would pain me greatly to depart and never know what there might be between us, father. Mother. But I will not stay at the expense of another. I love him, differently, but in no less measure than I love you, and my friends. If you say I belong here, then so does Loki.”

The hall was silent awhile longer. Loki looked to Thor, though Thor did not return his gaze, standing instead tall and forward before his father. As radiant and noble as any of the great kings of Asgard. The line of his profile caught and held the sunlight where it fell through the windows. Was uplifted by it.

Loki fell in love all over again.

At last, Odin sighed, and waved his hand.

“Very well,” he relented.

And stood.

Odin stepped down from his throne. He moved until he and Loki stood facing each other upon equal ground.

He looked to his eyes.

“Loki. My blood-brother. You are welcome here. And, if you will have it, we will see what new peace can be forged between us.”

Odin held out his hand.

After a moment’s long hesitation, Loki took it, clasping their palms together where they had cut and mixed their blood so many years ago.

A great cheer rose in the hall.

Thor laughed, beaming his smile.

He grabbed hold of Loki, pulled him close, and kissed him.

Of course this all happened very quickly, and Loki had yet to let go of Odin’s hand.

Nor did he, as Thor cupped his face and held him. Loki slid his eyes only half closed and looked to Odin just beyond the fall of Thor’s hair.

He smiled. The slyest of little grins.

And – for the most part – they all lived happily ever after.


End file.
